


Cold Feet

by goldenheadfreckledheart



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Sharing a Bed, Snowed In
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-16 12:38:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13054161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenheadfreckledheart/pseuds/goldenheadfreckledheart
Summary: The power goes out an hour after Clarke leaves for the airport, which is only a blessing in that it doesn’t delay her from leaving. Which means she doesn’t find out that his plans to stay with Lincoln and Octavia for the holidays were a total lie. He figures he's in the clear.He's not expecting her to comeback.ORSome classic snowed-in, holiday bed sharing.





	Cold Feet

**Author's Note:**

> Bff Winter Event fill for the prompt: It’s Christmas Eve and Bellarke are stuck together at someone’s apartment (or maybe they’re roommates! yay roommate AUs!), with a giant snow storm raging outside preventing them from leaving to see other loved ones. UH OH, power goes out! Uh oh, cuddling ensues.

The power goes out an hour after Clarke leaves for the airport, which is only a blessing in that it doesn’t delay her from leaving. Which means she doesn’t find out that his plans to stay with Lincoln and Octavia for the holidays were a total lie.

Not that he’s embarrassed to be spending Christmas Eve alone, but he knows that Clarke would have offered to stay, if she knew. And although spending the holidays with Clarke basically sounds like a dream, she’s been excited to spend them with her mom ever since they finally patched up their relationship over the phone a couple months ago. He wasn’t going to pull her away from that.

Honestly, he probably  _ could _ have spent the holiday with his sister, except she and Lincoln are off on a thrill-seeking ski trip, and when she’d asked him to come with them, he said no for the sake of his sanity. He’ll still probably get jolts of anxiety until he knows they’re back safely, but that’s pretty much par for the course with him, no matter where his sister is.

So the power going out—and staying out, he assumes, when it doesn’t come back on after five minutes—is inconvenient, but it’s only affecting him and it’s not like he was planning to leave the couch all night anyway. He has candles and the tiny battery-powered heater he bought for Clarke  _ last _ Christmas, when she kept complaining that her feet were always cold, so he’ll survive.

“You should just buy me a portable heater for Christmas,” she had joked, before Christmas but  _ after _ he’d already thought of it and bought it for her. “That’s would be such a Bellamy gift. You can over-care for me when you’re not even here.”

He definitely grins down at the heater for a second when he finds it at her bedside. There’s no use denying it. No one’s around anyway. She uses it all the time and though he might miss her habit of sticking her feet under his legs to warm her toes, seeing her get so much use out of it is almost as good.

His laptop is fully charged and he has a couple shows and movies downloaded from Netflix, so after he lights the candles, he gets set up on the couch with Clarke’s heater at his feet.

He’s two episodes into a new Planet Earth-style series that he could definitely get addicted to when he hears a sudden rustling at the door, like someone’s trying to open it.

He startles at the sound. After a second of deliberation, he figures it’s probably just a neighbor who got the wrong apartment door in the dark. But instead of going away, the rustling gets louder for a second and then he hears his door swing open, squeaking slightly on its hinges.

He doesn’t do anything for a long moment, frozen on the couch. Someone is breaking into his apartment when the power is out. It’s a smart move, for a burglar, his brain helpfully supplies. 

The thought does at least spur him to action. If they’re coming into the apartment—and it seems like they are—they’ll come from the entry-way into the living room first and he doesn’t have time to go to his room to hide. He hasn’t been in a fight since high school, if you could even call those  _ fights _ , but the darkness means he’s just as safe standing in the room as he is hiding behind the couch, so he blows out the nearest candles and rises to his feet as quietly as he can, listening for the intruder.

Who isn’t exactly quiet. 

He hears a  _ clomp _ by the door, more shuffling and rustling and then, finally, unsteady footsteps that make their way around the corner.

Before they can make it too far into the room he takes a breath and speaks, half hoping his presence will be enough to spook the burglar. It sounds just stupid enough to work.

“Who robs people on Christmas Eve?”

Whoever it is, gives a sharp, loud  _ shriek  _ at the sound of his voice and swears loudly.

Loudly and  _ familiarly. _

“ _ Clarke?”  _ he asks, bewildered, squinting into the dark to try to make out any Clarke-like outline.

“ _ Bellamy? _ ” comes her voice, “What the fuck? Why are the lights off?”

“The power went out. Fuck, hold on.” He scrambles for the matches and lights the candle closest to him, heart still pounding. He lifts the candle up so he can finally see her—looking as shocked as he feels, and  _ damp _ , like she walked through the now-howling wind and snow without a hat. “Why are you back _? _ Was your flight canceled?”

“Uh, yeah. Kind of. Jesus, you scared the shit out of me. It’s freezing in here.”

He steps back to let her into the living room and hands her a blanket when they get to the couch, still kind of reeling that she’s  _ not _ a stranger breaking into their apartment.

“How does a flight get  _ kind of _ cancelled?” he asks as she wraps herself in the blanket and he resists the urge to run his hands over her arms. Luckily, she leans against him a second later and he wraps an arm around her shoulders.

He can see well enough in the candlelight to tell that she opens her mouth to give an answer, and then pauses, eyebrows drawing together. She glances down at the time on her phone and then sits up, breaking contact, to look up at him.

“Wait, shouldn’t you be at Octavia’s?”

“Uh. Yeah no. She’s on a ski trip with Lincoln,” he says, not bothering to deny it.

“What?”

He runs a hand through his hair. “I never had plans for Christmas.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want you to feel like you needed to stay with me when I knew you were excited to see your mom again.”

When he meets her eyes, she’s  _ glaring. _ “Bellamy—,”

“You still never said how a flight  _ kind of _ gets cancelled,” he says, mostly to change the subject. He knows lying about his plans was ridiculous, and he knows Clarke is going to call him out for it, because she cares. They’ve got a pattern. He already knows how this goes. What he doesn’t know is why she’s  _ here _ .

A beat passes and then she collapses into his side with a laugh. “Oh my god.”

“You really gotta fill me in here,” he says when she doesn't offer an explanation.

After another short laugh, she turns her face to burrow into his sweater. “My mom and Marcus are in Europe.”

That’s definitely news to him. He thought she’d been going to visit them in New York.

“I lied about going to visit them. So that you wouldn’t worry.”

He catches on and grins down at her. “You were really going to start yelling at me when you did the same thing.”

“I was, yeah.”

“Hypocrite,” he says, slinging an arm around her. Then, laughing, “Wait, you literally left and then came back.”

“Shut up! I walked to the coffee shop around the corner. You were supposed to be gone when I got back. It was a great plan until you thought I was robbing you.”

“You’d be scared too if someone was breaking into your place, in the dark, on Christmas Eve.”

“I would.” She says, still smiling. “Sorry.”

She shivers against him, and he realizes she’s still wet from the snow. And it’s been getting steadily colder in the apartment.

“Jesus you’re still freezing. Hold on.”

He returns with a towel and another blanket, which he wraps around her as she dries off her hair.

“Thanks, Bell.”

Instead of settling back onto the couch though, she stands up.

“Where are you going?”

“Bedroom,” she says, matter of fact. “It’ll be warmer and more comfortable than the couch.”

He doesn’t catch on that she wants  _ him _ to come too, until she looks back and adds, “Come on.”

Which he has to force himself not to overthink. They’ll be warmer this way. That’s all.

She gets set up against her headboard and after a moment of hesitation, he joins her.

She’s still shivering as he pulls up a movie, some action flick neither of them has seen yet.

“You’re, uh, probably gonna want to take off that sweater,” he says, and tries to remind himself that there’s not actually anything creepy about the suggestion. It’s still damp from the snow.

Because she’s a terrible person, she grins at his discomfort, pulling if off over her head and then swearing at the cold, pulling the covers up around her. He thanks any relevant deity that she’s wearing a tank top underneath.

“You’ve seen me in a tank top before,” she teases, when he looks away for a second. “But thanks for your modesty.”

“Yeah I’m such a saint,” he says, hoping she can’t see his blush in the dark.

“Uh huh. Take off yours too. It’s time for cliché body heat sharing. And don’t argue,” she says, as he’s about to, “I saw you shivering too.”

Before he can say anything, she’s back under the blankets and turned away from him, so he takes a breath and does as he’s told.

“Pushy,” he adds, grinning when she rolls over to smack him.

He doesn’t move closer to her when he pulls the covers back up to his chin, but she curls into him almost immediately, and he might be alright at not  _ looking _ at her, but when she winds her arms around him, he’s not going keep himself from returning the favor. For warmth. Because they’re cold. It’s got nothing to do with the feel of her skin against his.

It’s safe to say he’s distracted for most of the movie.

When it ends neither of them moves to put a new one on. Clarke curls closer to him, and if they never move, he’d be perfectly happy. It’s still cold, but not unbearably so, and the quiet feels soft and safe.

“She did invite me,” Clarke says after a while.

“What?”

“My mom. She invited me to go to Europe with her and Marcus. But I—I don’t know. Christmas always reminds me of my dad. It was  _ our _ holiday. And I didn’t want to revisit that with her and Marcus. Not yet. It’s stupid, but I just—she still makes me feel like a kid, sometimes. So I wanted... something of my own first.”

He stays quiet, hand running gently against her back.

“I don’t know. It doesn’t really make sense,” she says.

After a moment of silence, she pushes up on an elbow to meet his eyes. “Is it bad that I’d rather spend Christmas here than with my mom?”

“No. You guys are just starting to get back to normal. You’ll get there. And you’ll have something of your own again, with her, eventually.”

“No I mean—,” she says, frustrated. “I mean, _ yes _ I want something of my own, but I didn’t mean with my mom. Though I want that too.”

She doesn’t continue right away, looking distant, and after a moment she burrows deeper into the blankets until all he can see are her eyes, directed toward their feet. It’s so strangely  _ non _ -intimate for a second—to have her in his arms, but so far away. The thought makes him ache, partly out of self-pity, but mostly because she has things on her mind that so far out-rank his stupid crush.

Though  _ crush _ is becoming more of an understatement every day.

“Sometimes I wish this was as hard for you as it is for me,” she finally says.

He almost doesn’t catch it, her words muffled through the pile of blankets. If she weren’t so close, he wouldn’t have heard it at all, and he’s still not sure he heard it correctly.

“What?”

“Never mind.”

He hates the quiet sadness in her voice. “Clarke.. _. _ ”

“I said I wish this was as hard for you as it is for me,” she says, sudden, like it's an admission of guilt. Then quieter, “But I didn’t—I don’t mean that.”

He’s stunned. So much so that he doesn’t resist when she pulls away from him. She’s still close enough that he can feel the warmth of her body. It mirrors the warmth of the hope in his chest. Hope that springs from the realization that  _ something of her own _ might mean…

“Clarke,” he says with half a laugh, turning on his side to face her fully, hissing at the cold air that the movement lets in and laughing again. “What makes you think this isn’t hard for me?” He feels like he’s on the edge of profound relief. It’s so close. “You know I’m a mess.”

She smiles back, but it’s tinged with sadness.

“I’m sorry,” she says again, somehow even sadder than before and he feels lost, trying to figure out what she’s saying—what he misinterpreted. “I didn’t think you noticed, honestly. I knew everyone  _ else  _ did.”

After a second, she finally does smile, but it’s followed quickly by a sarcastic laugh. “I really chose the best moment to have this crisis, huh? Fuck, I’m sorry. I’m terrible at holidays.”

She’s still not looking at him, and he’s not sure when he last took a breath.

“You remember when we first started hanging out all the time and our friends were sure we were dating?” he asks.

She makes a movement he assumes is a shrug.

“That was easier than this. Because I just had to deny having a crush on a girl I was starting to get to know.”

He takes a breath, and it shakes. “Denying that I’m in love with my best friend is a lot harder. So I,” he swallows, “I don’t know if it’s harder for me, but it’s not easy.”

Saying it out loud is surreal. Somehow more so than admitting it to himself. When he finally realized it, it was a shock, but he’d loved her for a long time before he realized it. This is something new. It feels more dangerous.

Silence stretches after his confession. All he can hear is his own unsteady breathing and the wind outside.

Then he feels her hands fumbling against him, sliding up his neck to settle at his jaw. Her touch heartbreakingly gentle.

“Fuck. Really?”

He breathes another laugh. “Really.”

Then she’s pressed against him again, and it’s as overwhelming before. She hesitates a second, her mouth a breath away from his. Like she can’t quite believe it. It’s so baffling to him. But then, he’s feeling the same thing.

He’s smiling when he closes the space between them, kissing her firmly, a declaration, and then slower, the way he’s been wanting to for months. He can feel her smiling too, hands roving up his chest, leaving trails of heat in their wake, and eventually weaving into his hair, after she’s pulled the blankets up over their heads.

“I love you too,” she says. “In case that wasn’t clear.”

“Awesome. I’m glad you didn’t spend Christmas with your mom.”

She presses one more kiss against his lips, then curls against his chest. “Maybe we can both go see her next year. She’s always asking about you.”

“Sure. Next year.”

It should be a terrifying thought, but he can’t help thinking it sounds pretty great.

* * *

“Hey,” she says, later.

“Hm.”

“No more lying about plans or…” she gestures vaguely, “anything for the sake of each other. We’re a team now.”

He laces his fingers through hers. “Yeah, we always have been.”

She hums in agreement. “Just better now.”

* * *

The next morning, he wakes to her freezing feet pressed against his calves and it’s definitely not comfortable, but he smiles sleepily as he pulls another blanket from beside the bed to drape over their legs. Clarke shifts slightly at the movement, and then curls in closer, her lips landing near his collarbone, where he can feel the warmth of her breath. At the further risk of waking her up, he shifts his arm across her waist, getting comfortable and closer and a moment later he feels her do the same, her hand curling loosely against his back.

Cold feet are a small price to pay if he gets her, he thinks drowsily, just before he drifts back to sleep.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Holidays pals! I recently got my first real, full-time job—which is awesome so far—but it meant getting thrown into 50 hour weeks right away and with grad school applications on top of that, time for fanfic writing and fandom in general has been a liiiiittle sparse.
> 
> I am still around though, lurking at the edges of fandom...waiting for a trailer. My tumblr is [here](http://www.goldenheadfreckledheart.tumblr.com).


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